UK Pornography Site Visits Declines After Identity Verifications, But VPN Use Surges, Reports Regulator
Access to pornography sites in the United Kingdom has decreased markedly since the roll-out of mandatory age verification earlier this year, as reported by the country's communications regulator. Concurrently, the usage of tools designed to dodge these restrictions has surged.
Immediate Fall in Visitor Figures After Law Implementation
The enforcement of age vetting on 25 July led to an prompt reduction in traffic to popular pornography sites, including the most visited provider in the UK. Figures indicates that user traffic to this platform in August reached 9.8 million, a decline of 1.5 million from the same period in 2024.
Overall, traffic to the 10 most-visited adult services in the UK have now stabilized at a “lower level” than before the late July implementation date. Subsequent data shows this downward trend in viewing continued beyond August.
Sharp Increase in Virtual Private Network Usage to Evade Checks
In response to the new regulations, adoption of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)—which can bypass location-based restrictions by masking connections via another country—more than doubled following 25 July.
Usage peaked at more than 1.4 million in the middle of August, up from approximately 650,000 people prior to the checks began. However, the watchdog noted that VPN usage has afterwards steadily declined, with latest numbers standing at around 900,000. It clarified that the level of regular VPN use is “much lower” than user numbers for adult sites.
Teenagers Taking Action to Damaging Online Content
In other findings, the regulator's annual study found that about 60% of teenagers aged 11 to 17 had taken action after encountering distressing content on the internet. Steps taken ranged from reporting the material to the site to muting the user who posted it.
This research was conducted before new regulations took effect that require platforms to stop children from seeing harmful content, including material related to suicide and adult material. The most common way teenagers encountered such content was by scrolling through a social media feed, indicating that recommendation systems were showing harmful material.
Ministers Announce Review of Pornography Legislation
Separately, the government stated it would examine the legislation relating to pornography to consider whether it is adequate in the modern online world.
“The review will look into the effectiveness of the current law in relation to criminalising, among other things, damaging portrayals of familial abuse and any types of pornography which encourage child sexual abuse,” stated a government official.
Campaigners Push For Stricter Online Controls
Advocates for tighter regulation of online pornography have urged the government to outlaw so-called “barely legal” material. This includes content featuring incest scenes or that appears to promote abuse by casting young-looking performers dressed as children.
Proposed changes to government bills seek to:
- Prohibit pornography where performers are impersonating children, often recorded in settings like children’s bedrooms.
- Broaden the crime of creating an indecent image of a child to cover material where an older performer acts the part of a child.
- Apply tighter regulation on familial abuse pornography, which research suggests is often promoted by platform algorithms.
- Introduce additional controls on “nudification” technology, potentially making it an illegal act to own software designed to generate private images without permission.
- Establish a new, independent oversight agency to perform spot checks on pornography sites and respond to reports of illegal content.
The advocates argue that these measures would ensure the safeguards that have existed for decades in the physical world finally apply to the online sphere.
